|
|
Brand Philippines: Attracting international conferences
Michael Alan Hamlin
Tourism needs to refocus
According to an annual survey of the Asian conference industry released in January by Conference Exhibitions Incentives Asia Pacific magazine, 197 international meetings were scheduled to take place this year. China was the most popular venue, with 26 scheduled events. It was closely followed by Hong Kong and Singapore, with 24 high-profile meetings planned.
The next most-popular venues were Thailand and Australia, where 18 meetings each were scheduled. Malaysia was next, with 16 meetings. India had eight conferences planned. And in the Philippines, four meetings were planned. You will note, of course, the obvious correlation between Asia’s fastest-growing economies and the number of conferences.
Continue
reading >>>
|
Posted
8/30/2006 6:17:57 PM |
|
|
|
Disaster risk management
Orly Mercado
We have no specific term for disaster in our language
“We have no specific term for the word disaster in our language,” she said. She was a government functionary attending a seminar on disaster risk management where I was a speaker. I asked her to explain. She said that the closest word she could think of in Dhivehi was “haadhisa” meaning incident. But after the 2004 tsunami that devastated many countries in the Indian Ocean including the Maldives, they use the word “kaarisa” to mean disaster. She added that it was a borrowed Arabic term.
I could understand why the Maldivians never found the need for such a term. This beautiful string of atolls and islands is probably close to our idea of paradise. Environmental extremes are infrequent. Close to the equator, it is not badly affected by typhoons, although they experience strong winds especially when cyclones move into the Arabian Sea or Bay of Bengal. Disasters seem to happen elsewhere, but not in the Maldives. All that changed with the tsunami.
Continue
reading >>>
|
Posted
8/28/2006 4:38:02 PM |
|
|
|
A cultural public service announcement
Paul Bograd
Something really stupid is heading our way from America
Writing for AsianPundit has been fun. What’s not to be fun? You get to pontificate endlessly and usually without consequences. There is no responsibility since you post whenever you feel like it. And so far the audience has been limited to those with who I am on a first name basis.
Then yesterday it happened. I was infected with an undeniable dose of self-importance. I felt compelled, as if by some higher power, to bring warning to Asia of a cultural atrocity and video abomination that was headed our way from America via the Cook Islands.
Continue
reading >>>
|
Posted
8/28/2006 3:20:50 PM |
|
|
|
President Bush and the U.S. Dollar $$$$$$
Paul Bograd
Please Mr. President, have pity on my Bangkok lifestyle
With Your Permission... let me be the Ugly American for the Day!
It may seem like a rather odd request: “Let Me Be an Ugly American for the Day?” But come on, it has been a pretty bad couple of months for the American image here in Southeast Asia.
Continue
reading >>>
|
Posted
8/26/2006 3:21:19 PM |
|
|
|
ASEAN should not integrate FASTER... ASEAN should integrate BETTER
Paul Bograd
ASEAN needs "Situational Free Trade" not "Absolutist Free Trade"
Mike Hamlin’s recent commentary, “ASEAN combats India, China,” was as usual timely, well-written and precisely documented. And any commentary that takes ASEAN politicians to task will always have my unending gratitude. And as usual I am in agreement with almost every one of his conclusions. My only comment is that he is wrong in his ultimate conclusion.
Mike concludes that ASEAN has to integrate FASTER; I would suggest that ASEAN has to integrate BETTER.
Continue
reading >>>
|
Posted
8/25/2006 9:21:57 PM |
|
|
|
UBS: Asia is cheap
Michael Alan Hamlin
Four of five world's lowest-cost cities are in Asia
A UBS survey shows Manila, New Delhi, Buenos Aires, Mumbai and Kuala Lumpur are the five cheapest cities on earth to live in. The survey is based on a standardized basket of 122 goods and services. Key findings:
--Oslo, London, Copenhagen, Zurich and Tokyo are the world’s most expensive cities.
Continue
reading >>>
|
Posted
8/24/2006 11:58:08 AM |
|
|
|
ASEAN combats India, China
Michael Alan Hamlin
But will have to face up to resistance to change
Malaysia trade minister Rafidah Aziz said over the weekend that ASEAN’s original member states – Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines, and Thailand – should commit themselves to fast-forwarding integration of their economies and forming a cohesive trading bloc to compete against China and India. She made her remarks on the outset of meetings in Kuala Lumpur between economic ministers that will run throughout the week.
Rafidah said that trade between ASEAN states should ultimately be seamless. “By seamless I mean that there is really harmonization across the board,” she said, noting the need to remove barriers “which are causing delays in bringing products into each other’s markets.” ASEAN economic ministers and their heads-of-state are slowly coming to the realization that to compete for foreign investment with the $7 trillion domestic China market, Southeast Asia must leverage the synergy of its much smaller individual economies. But is “realization” enough?
Continue
reading >>>
|
Posted
8/23/2006 10:50:18 PM |
|
|
|
Oil Spills
Orly Mercado
Playing Russian roulette with a shotgun
Two big oil spills in Asia are wreaking havoc on the environment. A Japanese tanker has spilled 1.4 million gallons of crude oil in the Eastern Indian Ocean. Another tanker ferrying bunker fuel sank in rough seas off Guimaras island in central Philippines.
We have seen this before. We are all furious at the effects of oil spills on wildlife. Subsistence fisherfolk in the coastal towns of Guimaras may now be facing hunger. Those who work in beach resorts in the Visayas region, including the famed Boracay island, can only pray the spill will not spread to them. As if the tourist industry does not have enough problems with terror threats in air travel, now this.
Continue
reading >>>
|
Posted
8/17/2006 9:59:41 PM |
|
|
|
Jekyll & Hyde
Michael Alan Hamlin
Competitive advantage is a fragile state
A contributor to the free online encyclopedia Wikipedia says the classic novella, The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, “is known for its vivid portrayal of the psychopathology of a split personality; in mainstream culture the very phrase ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ has come to signify wild or polar behavior.” An anonymous reviewer on The Literature Network writes, “Right and Wrong. Joy and Despair. Good and Evil. ‘Jekyll and Hyde’ is a magnificent story that takes the reader to the very edge of madness.”
I once suggested that the Philippines is a schizophrenic nation, characterized by vast social conflicts and political contradictions. To some degree, all nations share this quality. But the Philippines is a particularly poignant – and tragic – example of a conflicted state that denies itself the potential of which it is capable. And nowhere is that more apparent than in the Philippine Congress, and its efforts to promote yet concurrently undermine the nation’s global competitiveness.
Continue
reading >>>
|
Posted
8/16/2006 5:12:52 PM |
|
|
|
Melbourne the Magnificent
Paul Bograd
Food, wine and intellectual indolence in Melbourne
Given my past few weeks of global geo-political depression, it seems a bit silly to be reviewing travel and restaurants, but the diversion was very good for my soul, so I will be as self-indulgent about writing as I have been about this past week of wine, food and intellectual indolence in Melbourne.
Now I have been to Melbourne several times in the past few years. Usually I have traveled with my wife and a few good friends and always with great results.
Continue
reading >>>
|
Posted
8/15/2006 12:42:23 PM |
|
|
|
Yet another airline passenger's tale
Orly Mercado
She looked like she was only in her mid-thirties. She was stern and knew what she was looking for. As I struggled to unload my heavy luggage, the handle broke. She motioned me to the counter. “Open it up,” she said. I did.
“You have alcohol,” it did not sound like a question. She was a customs inspector in the Male’ airport. Maldives does not allow visitors to bring in alcoholic beverages although resorts for foreigners serve liquor.
Continue
reading >>>
|
Posted
8/14/2006 7:01:52 PM |
|
|
|
Redundant to whom?
Michael Alan Hamlin
The Philippine government should go to the source in bid to rationalize incentives
In recent weeks, University of the Philippines economists, the Philippine Senate, and the Department of Finance have lobbied for rationalization of investment incentives. Rationalization is not a bad idea. But it would be wise to ask investors for their take on the impact of incentives on investment and re-investment decisions before making changes. Read more here.
|
Posted
8/9/2006 12:33:05 PM |
|
|
|
Rearing kids
Orly Mercado
Keeping their guard up
We were having lunch with close friends. My wife Susy was doting over the four year old “master” of the lives, our son, Renzo. The conversation drifted to the topic of rearing of children. Because we live abroad, we talked about the pros and cons of rearing a child in a different environment.
We have always found the insights of the couple we were dining with as valuable. More so on this topic. They related the story of an American who chose to rear his children in the Philippines than in the United States. It is expected that the reason for such was that they had relatives in the Philippines. There was however, another reason.
Continue
reading >>>
|
Posted
8/6/2006 10:42:23 PM |
|
|
|
"The Southern Lebanon Candidates..."
Paul Bograd
(With apologies to the original “The Manchurian Candidate” novelist Richard Condon, as well as directors and actors, John Frankenheimer, Frank Sinatra and Jonathan Demme, Denzel Washington of the film versions.)
I was trying to think of something that could explain the absurd, absolute diplomatic, economic and geo-political incompetence of the recent events in Southern Lebanon by Israel, the United States its European allies... and the level of incompetence is so complete that the only plausible explanation was some time warped, multiple personality version of the “Manchurian Candidate” plot had been played out by Hezbollah in a multiple brainwashing of Ehud Olmert, Condoleezza Rice, Tony Blair and one George W. Bush (But you kinda knew that about George W. already.).
In the interest of journalistic integrity and full disclosure, let me clearly state my position about Hezbollah and Israel. Hezbollah was and is a terrorist organization (Albeit with an extensive social service and health care network.). Its intransigence in accepting Israel’s right to live in legitimacy, peace and security demands that they be disarmed, dismantled and discredited. The recent events in southern Lebanon perpetrated by Israel, and supported by the United States will neither disarm, nor dismantle nor discredit Hezbollah.
Continue
reading >>>
|
Posted
8/2/2006 1:15:33 PM |
|
|
|
Mel Gibson's woes
Michael Alan Hamlin
Scandal can destroy a career, but it doesn't have to
In High Visibility, we acknowledge that scandal can destroy or severely damage a visibility career, even in the entertainment sector (A scandal can also launch an aspiring performer, but that’s another story.). Meg Ryan, formerly viewed as America’s sweetheart, may never recover from the aftereffects of her romantic liaison with Russell Crowe while still married to Dennis Quaid, and her bare-all but widely panned role in the mystery thriller, In the Cut.
A search on The New York Times online for “‘Meg Ryan’ and comeback” provides no entry dated later than November 2003. When the search is broadened to simply “Meg Ryan” current references pop up, but they are vacuous and often in the context of failure to make a comeback or “doing a Meg Ryan.” While Ryan could revive her career, there’s little to indicate that she will.
Continue
reading >>>
|
Posted
8/2/2006 12:58:36 PM |
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
